Living Differently is the story of a septuagenarian former professor and historian, Prateep Sen, who lives in his parental home in Chaibasa, a mall township in Jharkhand, with his ailing mother and indu, his wife, Prateep is on the threshold of a new voyage from the world of facts, his earlier quest as a teacher and researcher, to the world of fiction. Fresh and raw in this new field, he does not know what story he should tell and how. A broad plot finally emerges in his mind. As he dabbles further, the storyline gradually unfolds in the form of a novelette. In ten chapters, the book narrates the story of the indomitable way three old people face an unprecedented challenge that the sudden outburst of the COVID 19 pandemic has brought in and around them. Living Differently is therefore as much a self-story as it is a juxtaposition of the agonies and ecstasies of the people around and away from him. It tells how three old people invent a new life pattern, being confined within the four walls of their house, and struggle and explore the joys of living in an unfamiliar and exciting virtual world and amongst their close ones, living many thousand miles away. In a seriocomic style, Living Differently attempts to convey that in the midst of the myriad experience of suffering, life can be lived by drawing sustenance from the small pleasures of daily life shared with the loved ones in the family, as also from the fond memories, otherwise frivolous pranks of children, music and flowery garden, as also by associating with the course of life, near and distant. In this way, Prateep's dialogues lend a new meaning to life and make living more worthwhile than being steeped into despondency in the midst of affliction.
Asoka Kumar Sen, a former Professor of History and presently the Editor of the Journal of Adivasi and Indigenous Studies, lives at Chalbasa, a remote township of Jharkhand, India, with his wife and mother, while his two daughters live in the United States with their familles. After his retirement from teaching. he played long innings as an academic researcher and author of books and essays that earned him eminence in India and abroad. At the age of 79, he embarks on an exciting journey as a novelist to fulfil an old commitment he had made to his wife and himself. Living Differently is his debut novel. And not the last perhaps. The absorbing struggle of the Adivasis for existence that he came across in the old records Invites him to be the storyteller.
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